<< DO YOU WANT TO POSSESS? >>

  << YES / NO >>

  Jessica saw the options given to her, and without a moment’s hesitation or even a second thought. The mental equivalent of a frantic, all-caps scream—[YES!]—was her only answer.

  The world dissolved into a vortex of sensation. Her fixed, flickering perspective ripped free from the dying torch. She was a shooting star of consciousness, a blur of motion hurtling across the short gap toward the locust. There was no physical travel, only a violent shift in allegiance, from one point of awareness to another. Her vision swam, darkened, and for a heart-long moment, she was nowhere at all.

  << DING!! >>

  << POSSESSED CREATURE RESISTANCE: NONE >>

  << POSSESSION SUCCESSFUL!! >>

  Darkness receded, not like opening eyes, but like a curtain being lifted from within. Sensation flooded in, not the passive, detached sight of before, but a raw, multi-directional input.

  ‘Did it work?’ The thought was tentative, a whisper against the tide of new data. And then she saw it. Or rather, she saw them.

  Her vision was… fractured. Wider. She could see the gritty texture of the stone path directly beneath her, the damp wall of earth to her left, and the discarded lightless flame torch with its pathetic wooden handle, all at once, in a jagged, panoramic sweep. It was less like looking through a window and more like her mind was a bowl receiving signals from two separate, wide-angle cameras placed on either side of her head. A 180-degree nightmare of clarity.

  Just as she was about to try and look down, to see the form she now inhabited, another blue screen materialized, superimposing itself over the bizarre landscape.

  ‘The hell!’ She flinched, a mental recoil. The system’s sudden, silent apparitions were going to take some getting used to.

  << Loading..... >>

  The screen resolved into neat, blocky text.

  [STATUS]

  +

  Name: Jessica

  Level: 1 [Infant Rank]

  Exp(Fragnet): [[0%]-------100%]

  Title: None

  Specie: Flame

  Species Possessed: Cave Locust [Hp/100%]

  Rank: [Infant], Cave Locust [Infant]

  Magic Cores: [You Are Currently An Idea], Cave Locust [1/1]

  Items: None

  Echoes: None

  Innate Abilities: [Possess]

  Abilities: Unique Skill [Blabber Mouth], Flame Specific Skill [Burning] [Life Multiplier(By Snorting)], Cave Locust Skill [Acid Ball] ---> [Flame Acid Ball]

  +

  ‘Oh… this seems to be my status.’ She mumbled inwardly while scanning the lines like a bizarre resume for a more bizarre existence. ‘Name.. check. Level.. check. Exp.. check. Title.. check. Specie.. check. Species Possessed.. check. Ran—’ She paused, her focus snagging. ‘Hmmmm. Why does it seem like this ‘Infant’ thing is something the system just made up? Is it trying to get on my nerves?’ She could almost picture a smug, invisible developer adding that label just for her. With a mental shake, she moved on, but just as she read the next line, though she currently don't have a brow, she couldn't help but inwardly furrow her brows as the next line stopped her cold.

  Magic Cores: [You Are Currently An Idea]

  ‘Is being a flame… an Idea?’ The question planted itself in the center of her mind. It felt profound, absurd, and vaguely mysterious all at once. Was she a concept? A fleeting thought given fire? She pondered it, turning the notion over with the intense, futile concentration of a philosopher considering the meaning of a single grain of sand. The nature of her new existence, the metaphysics of transmigration, it was a mystery begging to be solved by her hands.

  Tssss!… Sizzle... Tssss!…

  In the end, reality struck harder. A sharp, frying sound, accompanied by a sudden, acrid smell of burning chitin, cut her philosophical deep-dive short. A groan of pure mental agony escaped her. A smoky haze began to cloud the edges of her panoramic vision, not from external sources, but from within her own new head. It was burning. She’d been thinking with a brain now literally on fire.

  'Reality, you ruthless bastard.' She quickly abandoned the deep thoughts and skimmed the rest. ‘Items.. Check. Echoes.. Check. Innate Abilities..’ Her eyes stopped on her innate ability, a smirk forming on her mental lips. ‘I wonder what I’ll possess next.’ Visions danced in her smoldering consciousness; a mighty wolf, a soaring bird, a wealthy noble with a soft bed… The possibilities were a delicious escape. She didn’t even realize she was giggling aloud until a strange, chittering “Hehehe” resounded inside her mind like a final bell of a burial ceremony.

  The sound startled her for a moment as she read the final line.

  Unique Skill: [Blabber Mouth]

  The smirk vanished.

  "What the? What the hell is ‘Blabber Mouth’? Damn system! So you DO have a consciousness and you chose to ignore me earlier? Hmph!"

  A wave of indignant fury, hot and bright, surged through her. If her current locust-eyes could shoot daggers, the status screen would be shredded to a thousand pieces. If she had the body of her normal flickering flame, it would be roaring. The system had been silent in her moment of ultimate panic, only to communicate now via a backhanded, cheeky skill name. It was mocking her. It had to be.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  ‘Hmph! Hmph!! I’ll deal with you later,’ she fumed, locking the grievance away in a mental vault labeled ‘Future Vengeance.’ As she knows the locust eyes couldn't shoot daggers, neither could she touch the system as it is not corporeal. ‘For now, let’s see what we’ve got here.’

  She turned her attention inward, to the body she now commanded. Through the locust’s compound eyes, she saw her own limbs, segmented, spiky, and currently wreathed in faint, dancing tongues of blue-orange fire. The flames clung to the hard carapace without physically consuming it, a spectral corona that flickered with her every thought and emotion. The Cave Locust was now a Flaming Cave Locust. The warmth of the sight bloomed within her, a warmth of ownership, of capability. It was hers.

  Tentatively, she sent a command: Move forward.

  The locust’s front right leg twitched, then lifted. It placed it on the stone with a soft tik. Then the left. Tik.

  ‘I did it,’ She thought, disbelief melting into euphoria. ‘I did it!! Yipeee!! I can MOVE!’ She forgot the system’s insult, forgot the burning-brain smell, forgot the philosophical terror of being an ‘Idea.’ She was mobile! She took another jerky step, then another, a slow, fiery six-legged shuffle away from the pathetic lightless torch. Joy, pure and undiluted, was a sun in her mind.

  It lasted for three glorious steps.

  On the fourth, her jubilant focus finally expanded beyond the miracle of locomotion to the environment her new body was locomoting in.

  She was in a tunnel. A narrow, damp tunnel, carved from rough earth and stone. The only light came from the faint, sickly glow of luminescent moss patches and, of course, her own fiery aura, which cast leaping, monstrous shadows on the walls. The air was cold, still, and smelled of wet dirt and decay. The sounds of the three men were long gone, absorbed by the chilling passageway. An utter, profound silence had descended, broken only by the faint tsss...! of her own burning shell and the drip of distant water.

  And seeing this, the joy evaporated. She couldn't help but want to dig her head on the ground as another realization hit her,

  She could move, yes.

  But a new, colossal problem now surfaced, crowding out all others.

  Where the hell was she?

  The question lingered in the air unanswered as she stared at the direction the three humans passed through.

  'Where would that place lead me?' The thought was a fragile thing, immediately crushed by a darker premonition. This place felt utterly indifferent. It was dangerous. She could feel it in the silence, in the way her tiny flame-lit form seemed like the only spark of life in area she was in. And staying here, next to her lightless torch-body, was to accept extinction.

  But soon after, with a courage that felt more like desperate defiance, she shoved the fear down. 'Time to explore.'

  With a frantic, jerky boing! boing! boing! Jessica the Flame-Locust scurried into the shadows of the cave, and what followed next were three days of hopeless, hungry wandering.

  To be precise, according to the relentless, silent clock in the corner of her system interface, it had been << 3 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, 49 seconds >> of it.

  And now, Jessica, lost, weary, and burning through the last reserves of the creature she possessed, was pressed into a high crevice in the cave wall, a tiny, flickering spectator to a scene of primal violence.

  Below her, in a broader cavern lit by strange, phosphorescent fungi, two packs of Mud Wolves faced off. They were ugly, sturdy things, their fur matted with clay and dirt, eyes glowing a dull, savage yellow. Snarls ripped through the stagnant air, a language of bared teeth and raised hackles. They were about to tear into each other, and she was trapped above it all.

  If you’re curious why she was lost, the story was a short, pathetic saga. After her initial, triumphant Leap-Boing!-Leap, she had followed the path the humans took. It led her to a junction: three identical, yawning mouths of darkness, left, center, right. A crude, three-pronged fork in the road to nowhere.

  A hunch, brittle as old bone, had whispered that finding those humans was her only ticket out of this subterranean nightmare. But which path? She had no clue. Her entire life’s experience with navigation amounted to following GPS voice commands.

  Without knowing what else to do, she decided to guess where she should pass, but realized soon after, that...

  'Even at guessing, I’m bad at it.'

  But she had to choose nevertheless, and so, with a boldness born of having no better ideas, she picked the right-hand tunnel.

  That choice however, had led her here: lost, starving, and hiding from monsters as a clock ticked down on her borrowed body.

  ‘Ooooh, brotherrrr…’ The mental sigh was long-suffering. Her vision through the locust’s compound eyes was growing blurry at the edges, the world softening into a hazy, dangerous dream. A persistent notification hovered, a grim diagnosis:

  << SPECIES POSSESSED: CAVE LOCUST [HP-25%] >>

  ‘I’m absolutely lost. And this body… it’s burning out.’ A fresh wave of panic, now a familiar acquaintance, washed over her. ‘Why? I only just possessed it… Oh. Wait.’ The simple math of biology presented itself. ‘It’s been four days. This body… I haven’t eaten. Is that it?’

  As if waiting for her to finally ask the right question, the system chimed in with a solution, its text scrolling with an air of exasperated simplicity.

  << Solution: Hunt other creatures. Utilize [Acid Ball] to inflict damage and gain Experience. Utilize [Burning] to absorb nutrients from deceased matter to replenish Possessed Creature vitality. >>

  ‘Burning?’ She thought, tapping into the skill list in her status. ‘Oh, you mean that Burning skill I have?’

  The system’s response this time wasn’t pure text. It carried a tone, a palpable, digital sneer.

  << Yes. Dummy. I’ve told you this several times. >>

  ‘The hell!!’ Jessica’s mental voice shrieked with indignation. ‘I just asked a simple question! For conversation! Why are you being so mean, you brat?!’

  This bickering had become the soundtrack to her journey. It wasn’t the first time she’d asked repeatedly how to survive. And honestly, could anyone blame her? One glance at the status of a Mud Wolf, which the system conveniently displayed when she focused on one, was enough to make anyone question their life choices.

  [STATUS]

  +

  Level: 4 [Infant Rank]

  Specie: Mud Wolf

  Magic Cores: [1/1]

  Innate Abilities: [Primal Instinct]

  Abilities: Unique Skill [Howl Of The Beast] [Mud Camouflage]

  +

  'Three levels higher. How in the flaming hell am I supposed to attack that with this bug body?'

  She’d run the scenarios. Ambush from above? She’d be swatted like a fiery gnat. Lure one away? They traveled in packs. Try a desperate Acid Ball? It might annoy it, like a pebble thrown at a tank, before it turned and chomped her in half. Every plan ended with her being squashed into chitinous paste or simply ignored, a faintly sizzling afterthought.

  She’d even, in a moment of wild hope, tried to use her ultimate solution. Focusing on the largest wolf, she willed her [Possess] skill to activate.

  The result was a swift, crushing disappointment.

  << SKILL – POSSESS ACTIVE >>

  << 0 COMPATIBILITY FOUND >>

  << CANNOT POSSESS TARGET OF HIGHER LEVEL THAN HOST [CURRENT LEVEL: 1] >>

  The panic was a cold knot in her core. If she didn’t hunt something, this locust body would burn out and die, and she’d be… what? A disembodied flame consciousness again, waiting for another random bug? She hadn’t seen a single creature smaller or weaker than herself. Just these roaming, snarling level-four death machines.

  ‘Sigh… Why does my luck have to be this catastrophically bad?’

  Below, the tension snapped. With a unified, guttural roar, the two packs surged together. It was chaos, a blur of matted fur, flashing fangs, and splatters of dark mud. Claws raked flanks. Fangs found purchase. The damp air filled with the sounds of snarls, yelps of pain, and the wet thuds of bodies colliding.

  Jessica watched, a captive audience to the brutality. Her mind, however, was racing, threading a needle of logic through the violence.

  ‘If my guess is correct, this clash will lead to injuries. Maybe even fatalities. I can’t possess something of a higher level, even if it’s hurt. That’s a dead end. And if I could, jumping into a wounded, enraged wolf sounds like a fantastic way to experience a second death in one day. But…’

  A thought, sharp and clear, cut through the desperation.

  The system’s rule was about possession. It said nothing about scavenging.

  ‘That level difference… it wouldn’t apply to recovering HP by burning a deceased body, would it?’ The idea ignited like one of her own sparks. ‘And most especially… it wouldn’t apply to delivering the last, finishing blow to a weakened, dying Mud Wolf.’

  A slow, mischievous smile spread across her consciousness. This disadvantage, this immutable law that locked her out of the big game…

  It might just, at the perfect, blood-soaked moment…

  ‘…Right?’

  …be flipped entirely to her advantage.